A message from John Roskam on 18C

Today Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced the Coalition was abandoning its promise to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the law that sent Andrew Bolt to court.

Back in February last year I wrote to IPA members about something Chris, who’s an IPA member from Sydney, once said to me. Since then I’ve often spoken to Chris about the power of what he told me and I’ve reflected on it.

Chris told me how his two grandfathers fought on the Western Front in the First World War for freedom. He told me how his father fought in Burma in the Second World War for freedom.

And when his mother was a fire lookout in South London during the Blitz she stayed awake through the night to keep her family safe and free.

We owe our thanks to the sacrifices that previous generations have made so we can live and bring up our families in a free country.

Today at 4.30pm after the prime minister’s press conference Chris rang the IPA to say he would never ever give up fighting for freedom of speech and he knew the IPA would never ever give up fighting for freedom of speech either.

As you know Tony Abbott’s promise to repeal 18C was announced to the IPA in Sydney in August 2012. You can watch his speech here. And this is the IPA’s press statement we issued after the PM’s announcement.

In the last few hours I’ve been inundated with messages of support from IPA members. Every single one of you wants us to keep up the fight for freedom in Australia and the fight for freedom of speech.

In fact you want us to redouble our efforts to fight for what is one of the most basic human freedoms.

A few of you even reminded me of the email I sent out last month when the carbon tax was repealed. In that email I pointed out that back in 2009 Tony Abbott supported carbon taxes. The IPA fought that fight – and we won.

And we’ll fight this fight too – and we’ll win this one too.

I believe that now more than ever Australia needs the IPA. In the coming days and weeks and months I’ll be telling you more about how we will fight to restore freedom of speech in Australia.

But tonight I just wanted to tell you one important thing – the IPA will never ever stop fighting for our fundamental human freedoms.

OMG, I’ll soon be sending Cory Bernardi a thank you note and a little donation for threatening to cross the floor if that treacherous low life Abbott introduced his PPL scheme to the senate. Now I suppose I will have to send you a little something.

Freedom sure as hell works out expensive, but some have paid the ultimate price so that we can be free. I hate Abbott more than I hated Gillard. She was what you expected from an unethical, unprincipled political party. Tony Abbott is a traitor, pandering to those who he thinks will win him votes but will in fact lose him votes destroy him and his party and damage the country.

1. John, if you’re even seen in the same room as this gutless turncoat hypocrite Abbott before he rescinds this, you’re as bad as him.
2. You’ve got lots of good people at the IPA. We don’t need propaganda, just information about The Enlightenment, the foundation of Common Law and how this LNP scum has sold out our civilisation.

Roskam is just marketing. If he was serious he would denounce abbott and all the jelly backs.

How do you know they won’t? It’s not easy for the IPA to find a venue for making statements. May be The Australian might give them a voice. 2GB would but not Ben Fordham, he thinks the grub Craig Laundy is a hero.

And he’s not going to win over a single vote from them – not a single one… And he has now lost mine. [yes I’m slow … ].

I sent dozens of emails to like minded people asking them to send their senators a threatening email saying that they will vote Nationals if the Libs support the ETS when Malcolm got turfed. It’s time to do the same – except to suggest that they don’t bother sending the emails and send the message directly by voting against the Libs in the Senate. I think that our last hope is going to be having the LDP or its like with the balance of power.

Just hope that it’s not too late. There are cold winds starting to blow. Ballooning debts, negative interest rates, volatile markets… The big correction is on its way.

I resent 18C in every way, but seeing Mike “I’ll pour the gin” Carlton get taken down would relieve my disgust somewhat. And it might make the left wake up to the injustices of the law.

Turtle, I understand why you say that but I don’t want to see Carlton subjected to 18C. He has been dealt with via public backlash and the SMHamas has been forced to apologise. It’s humiliating for them even though they don’t show it. I don’t believe in silencing them, no matter how much I detest their vile antisemitism and unAustralaian attitudes.

as to your last sentence, nothing is going to wake up the left becuase leftism is a mental illness.

“There’s this perception out there that 18c was a great inhibitor of free speech but in the last twelve months the sum total of 192 cases bought 6 ended up in court, three percent of them. It is not a place for vexatious litigious people to go, it’s a safety net.”

“There’s this perception out there that 18c was a great inhibitor of free speech but in the last twelve months the sum total of 192 cases bought 6 ended up in court, three percent of them. It is not a place for vexatious litigious people to go, it’s a safety net.”

Astounding stupidity.

One single case is enough to chill free speech.

If no-one knows about it, how and against what, is it a “safety net”?

If it’s not a place for “vexatious ligation” how is it that 97% of the cases didn’t make it to court.

John Roskam and Tony Abbott are disappointments when it comes to freedom of speech. One for lying to us, the other for not calling out the liar. Both have sold out the core of Liberty and do not deserve further support.

“There’s this perception out there that 18c was a great inhibitor of free speech but in the last twelve months the sum total of 192 cases bought 6 ended up in court, three percent of them. It is not a place for vexatious litigious people to go, it’s a safety net.”

So 186 made spurious claims, no doubt to intimidate the accused. On what grounds did they need to invoke 18c? What laws do we not have that 18c is needed? He doesn’t say what the outcome of the 6 court cases were. Anyway it seems he’s got some numbers wrong. This is from one of the submissions.

Critics of the current laws seem to ignore the statistical evidence of the function of s18C and
its associated provisions. The Australian Human Rights Commission reports that of the 192
racial hatred complaints made in 2012-2013, this constituted:
…a 59 per cent increase in complaints under section 18C. Fifty-three per cent of
racial vilification complaints in 2012-13 were resolved at conciliation. Four per cent
of complaints made under section 18C were terminated or declined for being trivial,
misconceived or lacking in substance. And less than three per cent of racial hatred
complaints proceeded to court.

There’s more and it makes ugly reading. It indicates that because there was a 59 per cent increase in complaints, then the law is working.

Butch is shitting himself at the moment. He thinks that by playing tough his days at SMHamas aren’t numbered. I’m sure the CEO is giving Butch’s bosses soothing words to mollify them and the tone is working down. But it’s the board that would be as embarrassed as hell now, especially with the Cartoon. They’re the ones walking around town, getting invites to functions hosted by the the Lowy Foundation, having to explain themselves and why they haven’t acted.

Butch is gone and so are Cubby and Goodsir. The CEO will hang on in there, but only just.

NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher said at a press conference in Sydney this morning that Twitter trolls should have their keyboards replaced with handcuffs.

“Honestly, these clowns who hide behind their keyboards in their mothers’ basements thinking that they can send offensive messages … we’ve got to empower police with the ability to replace their keyboards with handcuffs, grab them by the ears from mummy’s basement and take them down to the local police station and make them understand the offensive matters that they continue to raise on the internet [bear] a terrible price.”

Mr Gallacher said NSW Police did have some powers to take action against online abusers, but there needed to be some support from the federal government in making the legislation tougher.

“I’ll be updating letters today to the federal government to include the Farah matter and asking them to take those matters into consideration.

“Quite simply, these clowns have to realise that it’s not acceptable to be sending offensive messages over the internet.”

And all this was because some deranged wacko had mocked a footballer’s deceased mother in a late night comment posted at his Twitter site.

So here was a “Liberal” calling for the police to monster anyone who writes something offensive on the internet. “Take them down to the police station and make them understand,” hey Mike?

We know what you mean.

O’Farrell took up the matter with Julia Gillard, calling for increased powers to arrest people.

You can imagine how many thousands of accusations would occur weekly if the proposal put by these two morons was ever implemented. Thousands of people taken down to the police station.

I don’t think they’re buddies. O’Barrel sought him out by finding his account and tweeting Carlton, I would imagine. In other words Fatty is sucking up to Butch.”

All I know of Twitter is what I read here.

Am I to understand a senior leader of the NSW Liberal Party, in government and presumably with much to do and a full appointment diary, is searching out internet recipients of no great moment on his mobile and texting facile comments in the same manner as Ja’mie King of Summer Heights High?

Yeah, O’Farrell wanted to ARREST people who posted anything offensive on the internet but tonight he’s kissing the arse of Mike Carlton – who has described the “Jewish lobby” (Jews) as “a ferocious beast.” I put it to you that however appalling it was for Robbie Farrah’s mother to be mocked by a lone imbecile on Twitter, it is tectonically more appalling and dangerous for a man to be describing Jews as beasts. But Barry O’Farrell is fine with that sort of person and that sort of talk, apparently.

Isn’t it passing weird and worrying that Carlton of all people whould be dying his hair blonde?

David Bowie went though a similar metaphysical period in his life too with Ziggy Stardust. Of course though, Butch would would have used a much more different name because Ziggy Stardust sounds kind of Jewish.

… we’ve got to empower police with the ability to replace their keyboards with handcuffs, grab them by the ears from mummy’s basement and take them down to the local police station and make them understand the offensive matters that they continue to raise on the internet [bear] a terrible price.

That sounds like the kind of thing Hitler would write. Really frightening stuff.

Abbott clearly feels that his (former) supporters have no where else to go. In a way he’s right- conservatives and serious libertarians can hardly give their vote to the Greens or the ALP. However, we CAN deny the LNP the funding that comes with a first preference vote. Put Family First, the DLP or the LDP or your favourite party candidate first and put the LNP’s just above the ALP and the Greens. If the LNP want to break promises to their supporters, then clearly they don’t need our financial support either.

The interesting thing here for me is seeing exactly how much influence the IPA has; almost none. The major reform they campaigned on, with promises from the friendliest government you’ll ever get, all amount to nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. The IPA, like every LNP voter, got lied to, and they believed it.

Surely if 18c style laws had any use at all they would have been used to prosecute some imams for anti-jewish tirades, or fundamentalist rabble for things aired in their street protests.
Instead we’ve had Victoria’s legislation used against christian preachers for quoting the koran in a less than respectful manner, and against Andrew Bolt for stating the bleeding obvious – but even then only succeeding with a combination of left-leaning barrister and judge.

Will Abbott ever be invited back to speak at the IPA again? I’d hope not, not until he shows he is willing to fight for our freedoms. The depressing thing is, I can hardly think of anyone else at the Liberal party that deserves to stand on the IPA podium – they are showing themselves to be a depressing bunch of statists.

So the IPA is going to work towards a commitment from the PM?
Or a commitment from Shorten?

Unfortunately it will have to from Shorten. Abbott’s a goner. If he does make it the next election as PM (unlikely), Shorten will take over after that. We’re in for at least two terms of Rudd/Gillard/Rudd-type disasters. Australias are very, very slow learners with very, very short memories, and Catallaxy commenters are perfect examples of this. We need real disasters before we’ll change.

So – do we have a Prime Minister and Liberal Party who are really so ignorant they honestly don’t know or understand where the battle lines are, what we a fighting for and what the consequences of losing will be?

Or are they so clever, they know and understand all that and are part of the anti-west army while pretending (not very well) to be otherwise?

The greatest shame here is that so many of them claim to be Christians.

Maybe it’s something they put in the food in Canberra. Or is there some kind of invisible ‘stupid gas’ that lingers in the air?

But whatever you do, don’t blame the people who put it in in the first place, will you? It would never pass this Senate and trying to get things through the “senate that never would” is just a waste of money.
And to plagiarise…
Oxford Dictionaries define racism as the following:
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.

So some standard examples of racism would be:
?refusing to employ Aborigines because you believe they are inherently lazy and unreliable and will trot off on walkabout when the fancy takes them
?thinking all young Asian ladies are prostitutes
?habitually referring to black people as coons and niggers
?thinking all white people are automatically racist and benefit from white privilege.

Good job Islam doesn’t believe it’s superior or we’d be in serious trouble.

Abbott clearly feels that his (former) supporters have no where else to go. In a way he’s right- conservatives and serious libertarians can hardly give their vote to the Greens or the ALP. However, we CAN deny the LNP the funding that comes with a first preference vote. Put Family First, the DLP or the LDP or your favourite party candidate first and put the LNP’s just above the ALP and the Greens. If the LNP want to break promises to their supporters, then clearly they don’t need our financial support either.

I’m not sure why you would criticise the IPA for using this decision for “marketing” – especially if they’re a supporter of this blog.

Should they just bend over and take it? Hell no.

Abbott’s cowardice and betrayal on this one needs to be exposed and he needs to be hammered into a bruised pulp – figuratively speaking – lest he become too comfortable with the idea that surrendering to the Left is the best way to deal with such “complications” as free speech.

Abbott, you gutless wonder, stand in the Tosser’s Corner with Fraser and Hewson.

I’m left with the same feeling – Fraser, elected in a landslide 0n 1975, that victory confirmed in an even greater landslide in 1977, and, all the time, the same tactic of “well, if we are civilized and polite to the Left, then they will be civilized and polite to us.” Almost as though they were to nervous to USE that mandate.

The only way to deal with the Left is make their wives widows, their children fatherless, and their houses dunghills. Have a nice day!

Simple equation, why are not ordinary Australian’s using 18C to take action against all the Mufti’s, Imams and the terrorists that they support and encourage. Get them before the courts and accountable? If questioning the indiginious “industry” is offensive, then I find calls to behead all non-Muslims a little offensive. Or am I being too sensitive?

ZK2A, after the election I expected that there would be retribution for the previous six horrible years. I expected sackings of department heads and general cleanup. Remembering how Tony Abbott went after Pauline Hanson I expected no less. Instead we got Natasha Stott Despoja and Greg Combet and it went downhill from there.

Hardly embarrassed at all that Abbott has landed on the concept of ‘Team Australia’ as a winning strategy to deal with the looming-social-problem-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.

I presume that he, or someone advising him, must actually believe that imams around Australian will have a lightbulb moment thanks to the simple power and beauty of that sentiment – and will now be instructing the faithful to pull their heads in, scrub the Caliphate plan, recognise jihad as a personal struggle and get with fucking multiculti program, toot sweet.

The LNP blaming the withdrawl of changes to 18C on the muslim community is just a very convenient, calculated strategy to divert some blame for what has happened away from Abbott, Brandis and LNP itself and how they stuffed up selling the changes in the first place. Now much of the outrage turns to how the muslims are controlling our society, rather than the inability for the LNP to convince the community the changes they want to make are good.

If it was only the muslim community who were opposed to the changes then as a very small unpopular minority the government would have pushed ahead with the legislative changes. But its not – there are a significant number of community groups – Asian, Jewish, even European who have voiced opposition to the changes.

Might be counter-productive but I think we need supporters of free speech to use the provision against the usual suspects (ie Jewish organisations/individuals against the SMH for the anti-semetic cartoon, etc) simply to high-light to the peanut brigade that the idiocy of 18C cuts both ways (either that or the claim ends up getting thrown out because the commission member actually can’t apply the provision to both sides equally (only to fellow travelers) which might elevate the debate back up again – just as the slap on the wrist given to the anti-coal guy who falsified financial info to try and bring down a miner – it will be interesting to see what happens on appeal with that one)

Nonsense, the Muslim demographic determines seats in western Sydney and even more importantly are the instigators of violence on the streets and numerous criminal conspiracies to murder in the name of Islamofacism. That’s the crux. The Jewish and Vietnamese community exhibit no such behaviour.

Let’s say Abbott gets rolled – Malcolm Turnbull will most probably succeed him, given near universal support from the ‘Love Media.’ He convinces the Libs that what they need to learn from losing the election is that they pulled too far right, and need to pull back to the Centre-Left. He then figures that all of Australia is like the Wentworth electorate, and takes Lib policy all the way to Progressive Town as he tries to out-Left the Greens and Labor. He loses again and again, as more conservatives look to minor parties.

While this is going on, Labor, now back in power, moves to insulate itself from ever losing again – bringing in more welded-on Labor voters from the immigrant class and settling them into marginal seats. Then placing more supporters in charge of semi-Gov, non-Gov. bodies, and increasing the size of the ABC. Also, jacking up union power and punishing business who stood up at ICAC.

Labor in power for just two terms? More like a generation. Better hope Julie Bishop takes over, or Tony lifts his game.

…but I think we need supporters of free speech to use the provision against the usual suspects (ie Jewish organisations/individuals against the SMH for the anti-semetic cartoon, etc) simply to high-light to the peanut brigade that the idiocy of 18C…

Didn’t the president of the council of Australian Jewry have to resign in shame after the muzzies brought charges against him for stating words to the effect that Israel is being attacked by Hamas?

We don’t need to change our support for Israel. The kharmic bus is lining up the internal enemies of Israel who have been promoted to leadership positions.

Public apology to Brandis. I just heard him say he still supports repeal and is very disappointed.

Even their language is a give away. They could have simply amended it. I’m quite sure they were planning to amend it all along. So what’s all this nonsense coming out of their mouths about repealing it?

Indeed, Brandis is a teller of untruths. He never intended to totally repeal it. He has said as much. Repeal was an ambit claim designed to be diluted to not much.
This working out much the way good ‘ol George intended.

Infidel Tiger
#1406266, posted on August 6, 2014 at 11:42 am
Jews are no friends of freedom. It’s painful having to always go into bat for them, because they never return the favour.

theey are a new breed to me but i am learning fast, I.T. when you read history it looks like you are right. So much to learn from them. But it seems a bugger to fight for someone but have to watch that they don’t knife you in the back at the same time.

Carlton was done by a company on its knees. The financial imperative won the day, not 18c.
Another proof 18c is there for political manipulation of people who win arguments against the
politics but can be shut down by the HRC. That is direct restriction on freedom of speech using a straight
out political entity as a political self interest nurse maid to those we elect.

Abbott’s move shows how much we take on faith in a person in politics as against how little we really know
about them before we give them our vote.

At last some sanity. Now that things have become quite serious for us, in this very safe country, people begin to see how dangerous inflammatory and bigoted assertions can be. Thanks God for Tony’s willingness to see the merit in reconsideration.

A small number of Jews of the left are panderers. It is absolutely wrong to say that of all of them.
At the same time you have Carlton complaining he is the victim of a Jewish conspiracy.
The Jewish boys in the IDF are doing the real fighting.

It will be interesting to see what stance the Australian takes. Predictably Dennis Shanahan, a rusted on Abbott supporter, is backing him.
At the end of the day, it is a populist move, winning at any cost takes priority.

Normal Norman
#1406381, posted on August 6, 2014 at 2:05 pm
And why are such assertions “dangerous”? Surely in a civilised society based on Judeo/Christian and Enlightenment principles people can cope with mere assertions by refuting them (or accepting them as valid if they can’t be refuted)? Surely you’re not suggesting that there’s an element in the current population of Australia who are so uncivilised that they simply can’t be trusted not to resort to violence?
Oh of course, it”s those EVIL CONSERVATIVES!!!!!

This morning I sent an email to PM Abbot and Senator Brandis noting that I have been offended and insulted by Mike Carlton and the Fairfax press.
Since the government have decided to retain Section 18c, they should put it to its purported purpose, and file charges against Mike Carlton, the editors of Fairfax, and the cartoonist; all of whom have offended, insulted and intimidated me.
I also, as an added incentive, noted that if charges are not laid, I will be withdrawing my financial support from the Liberal party, and voting “informal” in all future elections.
I am not holding my breath.

Tim Neilson: I am suggesting that we have an environment in which sectarian and other vile bigotry is largely absent. We do have a rising assertion of the “right” to make hateful remarks and assertions about religious beliefs. In my opinion these people are largely mere attention seekers.
AS we all know, extremism is now capable of striking anywhere. I think it is wise to encourage people to recognise the broader humanity, to refuse to discriminate on the grounds of race, sex or religion and generally to maintain standards of decency.
As to your last remark, it would be helpful if people did not seek to cast themselves as some sort of victim. We all have basic standards of behaviour and I am suggesting nothing more than common courtesy, respect for the individual and perhaps an aspiration to decency.
I think Tony gets it.

Notafan: Islam is a religion. Perhaps you mean Muslims? But if you are you might like to narrow it down a bit.
Good old nilk, for example, has issues with people in Lakemba who attend public demonstrations in support of Palestine.
Normal Norman is a real conservative. As is Tony.

I am suggesting that we have an environment in which sectarian and other vile bigotry is largely absent.

You may suggest that, but what makes you think we have a choice?

We do have a rising assertion of the “right” to make hateful remarks and assertions about religious beliefs.

If religious believers and authors of holy books had been a little more circumspect about attacking and defaming (and calling for the genocide of) non-believers then perhaps there wouldn’t be so much of a need to attack religious beliefs, especially those beliefs that call for the death of non-believers.

Well it’s easy to blame others isn’t for the situation we’re in – Australians collectively voted in a Senate that makes working on policy a minefield – right now Abbott has to turn cartwheels to get a budget through that keeps the country from sliding into economic ruin and you guys are complaining about something that most Australians don’t even know exists … Get real ….in the land of jobs and mortgages and school fees no one really cares about 18C

followers of islam islamists whatever, it’s not really a religion it’s a political totalitarian ideology that it’s adherents want to control every minute detail of people’s lives right down to the amount of body hair they have